No. 2 Yale Tops No. 3 Penn 5-4

PHILADELPHIA, Penn. – Sunday, the Bulldogs beat Penn in the closest match of their season, improving their record to 14-0, along with a 5-0 Ivy League mark.

The match was by far Yale's closest contest of the year, as the Bulldogs previously had not lost more than two matches to any opponent.

The day began with a 3-0 victory by sophomore Gwen Tilghman at No. 6 over Leslie Gill.

Penn evened the score at No. 9, where freshman Issey Norman-Ross fell in five sets to Colleen Fehm despite not scoring fewer than seven points in any game.

Senior captain Rhetta Nadas, ranked No. 33, topped No. 19 Pia Trikha in a five-set battle where the players alternated games up until Nadas took the fifth 12-10 to win the match.

Junior Katie Ballaine lost in four games at No. 5 to even the score at 2-2, but freshman Shihui Mao swept Chloe Blacker at No. 8 to put Yale back in the lead. No. 15 ranked sophomore Kim Hay extended the score to 4-2 at No. 2 with a 3-0 victory over No. 12 Nabilla Ariffin.

However, Penn fought back at Nos. 7 and 4 with sweeps of sophomore Lilly Fast and senior Alexandra van Arkel to pull the score even pending the result in the No. 1 spot.

Luckily for Yale, the team boasts defending national champion and No. 1 ranked sophomore Millie Tomlinson, who knocked off No. 10 Rachael Goh 11-7, 11-4, 11-8 to clinch the victory for the Bulldogs.

Yale remains undefeated in the Ivy League, and will finish out the season this coming week. The team will travel to No. 8 Dartmouth on Friday and then host No. 1 Harvard on Sunday in a rematch of last year's national championship.